A Day Late

After a meeting in Salt Lake today a coworker introduced me to another great place to eat, Caputo’s Market and Deli. I went with the caputo sandwich which had pastrami, ham, oil, balsamic vinegar, etc. How was it? Delicious. I considered comparing it to Gandolfo’s Deli (who’s franchises are popping up all over the valley, we have two in provo) but the food was much better and it doesn’t seem right to compare the two. Just another reason I’d rather live in Salt Lake. I have a friend who’s been trying to convince me to move to Salt Lake, but I know I couldn’t stand the commute and I like my new job WAY too much to consider trying to find something in Salt Lake. It’s too bad I can’t have my cake, or in this case sandwich, and eat it too.

I’ve been hosting a few other sites on my server, for some friends, for quite a while. Up until now the sites have just contained weblogs so I haven’t had to worry about securing file transfers and such. For my own site development I created a nice little applescript applet that uses rsync over ssh to synchronize a local directory on my powerbook with my public html directory on the server. The applet has a text box to view the rsync output and two buttons, “synchronize” and “quit”. It’s worked well so when one of my friends called me and indicated they wanted to add some things to their site I contemplated just modifying the applet for them to use (he’s on OS X also). Then I started thinking about the larger picture; what if one of my other friends who doesn’t use OS X wants to have access to their public html folder? My first thought was to just enable FTP. Despite its utter lack of security it still seems to be widely used by web hosting services. However I just can’t get over the security issue. The idea of clear text usernames and passwords flowing across the internet to my server makes is just too much.

I wondered if any WYSIWYG clients supported more secure methods of file transfer, so I checked out Macromedia’s Dreamweaver site. I was pleased to see that yes, Dreamweaver MX 2004 now supports secure FTP. That’s good but restricting all my users to using a particular client didn’t seem like a good solution either. That’s when it hit me, if Dreamweaver has a secure FTP client built into it, surely there are some freely available, plain, secure FTP clients around. I checked into this a year or two ago but at the time I couldn’t find a client I liked, one that’s simple and easy for anyone to use. I was hoping things have changed since then and sure enough, I went to Apple’s OS X downloads site and immediately came across “Transmit“, a nice secure FTP client for OS X, that anyone can use. I haven’t bothered to check for windows clients, but I’m sure they’re out there. So, not only will I be able to keep server access relatively secure, I don’t have to change a thing on the server (since ssh is all secure FTP needs). I love it when things work out like this.

Some friends and I went up to the University of Utah last night to see Elliott Smith perform at Redfest. The concert was good and we had a good time. I was really impressed by the campus. I’ve been up to the U campus quite a few times and everytime I go I can’t help but notice how nice the campus is. It’s not that I don’t think BYU’s campus is nice, it is. It’s just BYU is on a rather small footprint, compared to the U anyway. I like the spread out nature and the view across the valley is incredible (particularly at night). I have to admit I’m a little jealous of those who work on the U campus.

P.S. We stopped at RedRock Brewery for dinner after the concert, it was excellent as usual.

Last night I did something I haven’t done for about 6 years. I bought a CD. I was at the Virgin Megastore with some friends and saw the new Johnny Cash CD (American IV: The Man Comes Around) and couldn’t resist. I have to admit I haven’t listened to Johnny Cash much, but I really like this new album. I can’t guarantee everyone will like it but I do and I’d recommend checking it out. Which reminds me, I love the Virgin Megastore. Good selection and you can check out everything before you buy it, very nice.

The new powerbooks are out. I thought they’d introduce them before the school year started but oh well. Should I upgrade or should I just be content with the nice system I have now? I have to admit, I’m a sucker for always wanting/getting “the latest and greatest.” Honestly the new system isn’t much better than the one I have now. There’s upgrades to USB 2.0, Firewire 800, 802.11g, 1.25 ghz processors, 80 GB harddrive, integrated bluetooth, etc. Honestly the thing I like most about the new powerbooks is the stylish new back lit metallic keyboard. It just looks slick and I have to admit, I really like it and want it. Fortunately I think reason will prevail and I’ll stick with the machine I have now for a while. That won’t stop me from seeing how much I could sell it for on eBay so I can calculate how much a new system would really cost. Who knows, maybe the bookstore will have another nice discount on the powerbooks (I doubt it).

I was walking across campus today to get some lunch and discovered it’s getting cold. It wasn’t that cold but it was enough to make you uncomfortable…err…at least make me uncomfortable. I’ve never been a cold weather person and I doubt I every will be. I’ve had many a pointless discussion with people that insist cold weather is better than hot weather because you can dress for the cold. I’ll admit it seems logical, but I prefer hot weather over cold, what can I say. Anyway, we can only hope that we’ll have a nice fall instead of going straight to winter.

Ok, so it’s not really my closet, it’s my cubicle, but I am cleaning it out. Anyway, months after graduation I finally have a new job which I start on Monday. I’ll be working at BYU as a web and database admin. I’m really excited about the new job and to be honest I’m glad I didn’t get any of the previous jobs I applied for cause I’m sure I’ll enjoy this a lot more. Not too mention I’ll enjoy the salary increase, the casual work environment (more casual than my current job anyway), plus I get twice as much vacation time each year. Oh yeah and I get away from tech support and into web and database development. I’m going to miss the System Admin stuff but overall I think it’s going to be a good move.

I’m back from the Eastern Idaho State Fair. We had some good times. The food at the fair was impressive. We spent two days trying all sorts of foods. I even took a bite of a nice deep fried snickers bar. I’d try and explain what it tastes like, but I can’t. All I can say is it tasted good. If I had to choose one I liked most, out of all the things we tried, I think it would have to be the “scone nuggets” by the Kiwanis, served with a nice slab of honey butter. They were excellent! I also had a pretty good hamburger. The hamburger shack was called “bimbos.” I can honestly say I never thought I would ever ask for “a bimbo with cheese” nor did I ever consider such a thing would only cost me $3.00. Anyway, the lime cherry with a twist of lemon drinks were awesome (I had one both nights, despite their hefty $3.00 price tag), the corn on the cob cooked in butter, also excellent. I just realized I didn’t have any fries or potatoes of any sort. That’s gotta be a crime. Well, for those of you who are interested I did take a couple of pictures. To sum up. Good times, good food, good friends, couldn’t ask for more.